Our nation’s veterans deserve easy and convenient access to high-quality health care — and that’s exactly what the Access Received Closer to Home (ARCH) program helps deliver for veterans in Aroostook County.
And when a program works so well, it only makes sense to continue it. That’s why Senator Susan Collins and I have been hard at work trying to extend the program beyond this summer, when it is currently set to expire.
The ARCH program has been operating at Cary Medical Center in Caribou since 2011. According to Cary Medical Center, the program serves more than 1,400 local veterans and has provided in excess of 17,000 medical appointments since its inception. Without this partnership, veterans in northern Maine would have to travel up to 600 miles roundtrip to access care at the Togus VA Hospital in Augusta, and a trip of that length can pose significant hardship for our veterans. That’s just part of the reason why ARCH is so important.
But without Congressional action, ARCH is set to expire on August 7, 2016. So in March, Sen. Collins and I introduced legislation that would extend the ARCH program for an additional five years.
Though our bill to preserve ARCH has not yet received a vote in the Senate, we did get some very encouraging news from the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this month. The committee passed its Fiscal Year 2017 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs (MilCon-VA) spending bill, which includes a two-year ARCH extension. There is more work left to be done to make sure the extension becomes law, but this is a significant step forward in our work to extend this vital program and ensure that Maine’s veterans receive the timely and convenient health care services they deserve. I commend Sen. Collins for her work on the Appropriations Committee, and I will continue to fight alongside her to try to shepherd this much-needed extension through the Senate.
While we push to save ARCH through the appropriations process, I will also work with Sen. Collins to pass our legislation in order to extend the programs for a full five years. By providing additional time to evaluate the successes of the ARCH program, our legislation would give Congress and the VA an opportunity to learn from and potentially use those successes to address existing problems with the Veterans Choice Program.
According to the VA, less than half of eligible Choice Program patients in Maine have received their appointments. That’s simply unacceptable, and the VA should use ARCH as a model in order to improve Choice for veterans throughout Maine and across the Nation — something that Sen. Collins, Congresswoman Pingree, Congressman Poliquin and I all urged VA Secretary Robert McDonald to do in a joint letter sent this February.
Everyone who has fought for this country shouldn’t have to fight for quality, convenient health care. I look forward to continuing to work with the other members of the Maine Delegation to extend ARCH, improve Choice, and see that our veterans receive the best care in a timely manner.
